


Finding Familiarity

by Marasa



Series: Dream Eater [13]
Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Anxiety, Cuddling, Drug Dealing, Emotional support animal, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Lack of Communication, M/M, Panic Attack, Protectiveness, Recreational Drug Use, Referenced Drug Addiction, addressing problems in relationship, black market
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 15:09:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13297482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marasa/pseuds/Marasa
Summary: He was fine, he said. He didn't need any help.Please don't worry.





	Finding Familiarity

“Boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend.”

“Boooyfriend.”

“Boooyfriend,” Josh mimics. It makes Tyler laugh.

It's a lazy kind of day. The house is silent as the others have gone out to go pick up dinner. Chinese again. No one is complaining.

It hasn’t stopped snowing and while the rest of the house was getting cabin fever and just jumping at a chance to get out after two days, the new couple was more than fine to stay behind and cuddle on the couch.

Tyler plays with Josh’s fingers as they snuggle up together, quilt wrapped around them and a fire crackling in the fireplace. Josh's hand stays pliant as he allows Tyler to turn it this way and that, poke at his fingernails, tug at the tiny hairs on his knuckles.

“Humans are weird,” Tyler muses as he splays out the fingers in his own.

“Hm?” Josh smiles as Tyler pinches the webbing between his middle and ring finger. “What do you mean?”

“I don't understand the etymology of the word- ‘ _Boy,’ ‘friend._ ’”

Tyler lines up the heels of their hands so he can compare. Josh’s, by no surprise, are larger than Tyler’s.

“You're a boy,” Tyler says.

“I am,” Josh says.

“And you're my friend.”

“I'm your friend.”

“Then by that logic,” Tyler looks up at him, “Mark is my boyfriend too.”

Josh raises an eyebrow. “Mark better not be your boyfriend.”

He sounds so serious that Tyler can't not crack a devilish smirk.

“And why not?” the spirit says.

Josh scoffs at the obvious answer. “‘Cause you're my boyfriend.”

Tyler rolls his eyes, a faint blush inching across his cheeks. Each time it's said sounds like the first. It's still as exciting and flustering as it was when Josh had asked him as they laid in the snow, lights twinkling distantly above them, around them.

He squeezes Josh’s fingers and brings them up to his cheek to nuzzle against them affectionately.

“I'm your boyfriend.” Tyler smiles against Josh’s knuckles before kissing them. “And you’re mine.”

The punk smiles and breathes an involuntary sigh of relief as if he's actually relieved outside of the joke. Tyler furrows his brow briefly at the fact, the thought of Josh’s vague anxiety that has been growing over the past few days on his mind.

A relaxing day like this is exactly what they need, what Josh needs.

Tyler had noticed the way he was restless, how he was beginning to doubt his ability to do mundane things, how hard simple decisions had become.

It was as if Josh wasn’t all there, simply distracted.

‘ _I'm fine, don't worry_ ,’ was Josh’s go-to answer whenever Tyler would express the slightest concern for him.

“But-” Tyler would try because he could tell something was on his mind.

“Ty, drop it. I'm fine,” Josh would always say. “Please don't worry. I don't need any help. I'm fine.”

It did little to convince Tyler that he was indeed ‘fine.’

For the past week, Josh was constantly out doing runs. Late nights left Tyler to sleep in a cold bed alone, left him to feed on the joyful dreams of Hayley and the surprisingly sad dreams of Mark.

Then Josh would come home but he'd still be absent as he was suddenly connected to his phone. Every buzz and ring demanded his utmost attention.

Tyler knew it wasn't polite to eavesdrop but he couldn't help it. Always, the conversations Josh had in private on the phone were hushed and tense; it seemed anything but fine.

But business was business.

Josh told him it was a necessary evil, so Tyler was left trying to ignore the way Josh seemed a little more stressed than normal.

He was fine, he said. He didn't need any help.

Please don't worry.

Neither of them seem to be worried for the first time all week, not while they're here enjoying each other's company and the quiet of a usually migraine-inducing level of noise in the house.

Here on the couch, under the blanket and warm, Josh is smiling and laughing and Tyler wants to keep him smiling because the sight has been rare this past week.

“But do you see what I mean? Mark’s a boy and he's my friend too.” Tyler sighs dramatically. “Humans don't make any sense.”

Blurry jumps up on the couch between them then, already purring. It's as if she can sense the comfortable atmosphere being woven between her two owners and wants to be involved.

Animals were ever perceptive to emotion, similar to spirits.

Tyler welcomes Blurry onto the couch with open arms.

She looks between them but ultimately slides into Tyler’s lap, no surprise there.The spirit pets the feline as she curls up tightly against him in search of warmth.

The men both smile down at their pet as Tyler scratches under her chin. Her eyes go half-lidded, purring louder and louder.

“Cats might make more sense than humans, actually,” Tyler says.

Josh laughs and then Tyler joins him as Blurry meows her agreement.

Tyler and Blurry have gotten closer, if that’s even possible.

For the first few weeks they had her, Tyler kept the cat as close as he could. He’d tuck her in his pockets of his sweats or his hoodies, cradling like her baby and rocking her when she’d begin to meow in distress at the confusion of domesticated life.

Tyler carted her around with him pretty much everywhere he went, his little black-haired, green-eyed, fuzzy friend blinking up from her place in his crossed arms or the pouch of his hood hanging over his back between his shoulders.

She’s gotten too big to constantly carry her around, though, so Tyler sat her down so they could have the difficult conversation about how she was now too heavy for him.

“Do I have to be here?” Josh murmured in confusion over his morning cigarette and cup of coffee.

“I’m sure it’s traumatic for her, always being with me and then, like, not.” Tyler looked from the cat sat at the spot on the breakfast table across from them so he could look to Josh beside him. “She needs all the support she can get.”

Josh rolled his eyes subtly but gave an understanding nod.

“Blurry, you’re too big for me to carry you now,” Tyler said seriously. “You scratch my arms to much and you make my back ache, so if you want to be with me all the time, you’re going to have to carry your own weight, quite literally.”

The pair watched as the cat licked her paw, eyes closed.

“Does she understand or…?” Josh asked as he ashed his cigarette into the ashtray on the table.

“Yes, I believe so,” Tyler said even though there was no definitive sign in that moment that she had.

But Blurry must have understood him because it’s not long before she was crawling up his leg, waist, back, all the way to his shoulder.

The cat had clung with wide eyes to Tyler’s shoulder, looking around, feet scrambling for purchase on his back.

It only takes her a day and a half to learn how to properly balance on him and not fall off.

They're a team.

Tyler strokes his furry friend’s head, the motion causing her eyes to go sleepy. The purrs she elicits quiet down as her head begins to nod, suddenly asleep in her favorite entity’s lap. Tyler smiles fondly down at her.

“Do cats dream?” Josh asks, his own finger joining Tyler’s to stroke the cat’s head.

Tyler boops Blurry’s nose. “Yeah. Many animals do.”

“Have you been in one of their dreams? Does it work like that?”

“There's not much to see, pretty much nothing to feed on,” Tyler says. “It's mostly blurry images. Sounds. Cat things, like mice and kibble and stuff.”

Josh smiles as he leans further against his boyfriend, lips brushing his temple, his nose nuzzling the fluffy hair on the side of his head.

“You're fuckin’ adorable,” Josh says with a smile. Their fingers lace together on the blanket over Tyler’s thigh.

The electricity is still there. Maybe it's more mellow now. While everything at the beginning was surprising and exciting, this is slow and tender and exploratory.

They have plenty of time now to explore each other without doubt or fear at feelings being reciprocated.

Josh breathes against Tyler’s jaw. The spirit leans his head back just enough for the other to trail his lips languidly just a little lower, only a little lower.

There’s a hint of teeth, barely a moment of suction, warm lips dragging lazily.

“Josh,” Tyler breathes with his eyes falling closed.

Humans are so strange and it surpasses just the weirdness of language.

Their bodies are so much more sensitive to physical touch. Back in the spirit realm, it was all mental- emotion, memory, the soul.

Physical sensations were so different.

Tyler’s human body is tingling and twitching and warming up dangerously hot as Josh’s hand wraps around his waist, his lips lavishing the skin of his throat.

It feels like fire under his skin, a burning that has his hands clenching and his mouth going lax, melting everything in him in the best way.

He wants to explore this with Josh, this wondrously strange feeling of fingertips and lips and warm breath over every inch of his sensitive skin.

But now isn’t the time. Something isn’t right.

Maybe to someone other than a spirit, such subtle display of emotion would be hard to spot but behind Josh’s seemingly relaxed actions, Tyler can sense slight anxiety and brimming panic behind his lips.

Josh is seeking comfort. He's trying to be eased by the other. His fingers hold too tightly to Tyler’s shirt, his lips are beginning to tremble.

Tyler brings a hand up to hold his jaw and doesn’t miss the way the man breathes a shaky breath of anxiety against him.

There’s something wrong. There's something that's been wrong all week.

“Josh-”

 _RINNNG_!

The pair jump, Josh harder than Tyler, at the sound of his cell phone ringing once again in his pocket. His grating ringtone for the past week has been consistent and elicits a Pavlovian response in the spirit that is an initial cringe followed by a scowl.

Josh stands quickly from the couch after pressing a brief kiss in apology to Tyler’s lips. It only lasts one second but it’s enough for Tyler to feel the great hesitance and longing of not wanting to talk to whoever has been pestering him.

He rushes to the kitchen as he finally silences his phone by answering it.

“Hello?” Josh whispers into the speaker. He sounds beaten.

Josh faces the corner of the kitchen, his back to Tyler. Still from the couch, the spirit can see clearly the tightness of his shoulders through his soft shirt, the white of his knuckles as he holds the phone to his ear.

He has no idea who Josh is talking to but he can already feel a sense of protectiveness flowing through him at the thought that whoever he's taking to is only making his anxiety worse.

Tyler wishes Josh would just come back and lay with him on the couch, kiss him again without all the anxiety, pet the cat, suck at his throat, laugh with him.

The spirit pets Blurry absently as he tries to hear what Josh is saying. All he can make out are whispers of, ‘ _I’m sorry, I know, I promise you, we- I know, but- I-’_

Josh sounds deeply in distress as he tries to keep it together where he’s hunched over the counter in the kitchen, face in the hand that is not holding the phone to his ear.

It brings about a sense of equal anxiety in Tyler but deep care trumps that terrible feeling tenfold.

Gently, he sets aside the sleeping cat and shuffles to the kitchen. His socked feet don't give any of his movements away.

“Please, give us more time, I know, but- it- it-”

A pause, then an answer of, “Okay, okay, I understand.”

With a low whine, Josh hangs up the phone and drops it on the counter. He buries his face in his hands, breath shaky and fingers tangled tightly at the front of his hair.

“Josh?”

The man in question whips around with wide eyes, taken off-guard. “H-Hey.”

“What’s wrong?”

Josh stands upright. “Nothing.”

“That’s not true,” Tyler states bluntly.

There's a meow of agreement coming from the entrance of the kitchen. They watch as Blurry, no longer asleep, strides into the kitchen, scales Tyler’s leg and situates herself comfortably on his shoulder.

Josh just sighs but makes no move to divulge what it is that is on his mind. He leans back on the counter, doesn’t maintain eye contact.

Tyler comes a little closer, closer, closer until he’s right in front of his boyfriend, looking up at him with a deeply concerned expression.

“Tell me, Josh,” Tyler urges, careful.

Josh smiles mirthlessly. “But I don’t wanna worry you.”

His eyes are clouded with uncertainty and exhaustion as he strokes the spirit’s cheek and Tyler thinks that Josh’s consideration is amazing but so harmful because it’s obvious he cares but he also refuses to ask for help when he needs it.

Tyler wonders if his hesitance to ask for help when he most needs it is product of his still mysterious past.

“You shouldn’t have to worry,” Josh murmurs, the pad of a calloused thumb gently running across of the other’s bottom lip. “Let me worry.”

Tyler takes in a deep breath to steady himself, stands up straight and speaks the truest words he can at that particular sentiment.

“Josh,” Tyler says, “that is one of the stupidest, most idiotic things I have ever heard.”

Josh blinks, hands dropping from his face. “Wh-What?”

Tyler gives him a firm look. Red-eyed and with a black cat perched on his shoulder, Tyler looks mildly intimidating.

Josh actually rolls his shoulders forward and bends his knees in a subconscious attempt to convey his shame.

Tyler just sighs softly and holds his cheek to assure that part of him that is embarrassed and regretful that he’s not mad, just a little disappointed.

“I’m your boyfriend, am I not?” Tyler says because they might as well start somewhere simple.

“Y-Yeah,” Josh says, still taken aback.

“And we care about each other, right? We trust each other?”

“Of course, Tyler, wha-”

“Then we don’t keep things from each other.”

Josh’s mouth opens then. His lips tremble as though he is about to speak but ultimately can’t formulate a sentence at his utter shock at the firm side of the other that he has yet to see.

Tyler holds Josh face in his hands, thumbs stroking against the cat tongue texture of his stubble. He hasn’t shaved in maybe a day or two. He looks like he hasn’t slept in a day or two either.

Tyler feels like he is to share the blame. He knew something was wrong but he didn’t say anything. He was waiting for Josh to ask for help but it never came.

He should have stepped in sooner.

“Joshua, I don’t want you to ever face these things alone,” Tyler says. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s bothering you. I’m here for you always. I want to help.”

“You can’t help.”

“Then let me at least listen,” Tyler whispers.

With his face still in Tyler’s hands, Josh looks to the ground. He gives a soft, defeated sigh through his nose.

“It’s business stuff,” Josh says. Tyler just blinks, waiting for elaboration. “I’m just worried about a shipment that we were supposed to get.”

“Shipment?”

The front door opens. The collective chatter of laughing individuals enters alongside the magnificent smell of Chinese takeout. They’re not as hungry as they once were, not with near breakdowns and the like.

If anything, Tyler’s stomach twists and turns at the delicious smell.

Jordan and Hayley are already unpacking brown paper bags while Mark and Michael make their plates.

Before the rest of the household can properly address the pair standing against the counter, Josh is taking Tyler’s hand and giving a quick wave to their friends before dragging his boyfriend down the hall to his room.

Tyler hasn’t made good on his promise to Abby to make sure Josh cleans his space. It’s still messy and cluttered but Tyler kind of likes it that way. It’s safer, more intimate.

Every article of clothing piled on the floor smells of him, the unwashed pillowcases smell of hair dye, the walls smell of delicious tobacco of the hookah in the corner.

The mess does well to provide insulation for the silence the couple needs as Josh locks the door behind them. His hand still holds Tyler’s as he leads him over to the bed. They both sit down atop the crumpled comforter, perhaps never before washed.

Blurry jumps off of Tyler’s shoulder and finds a spot to lay down beside them, still somehow sleepy.

Josh looks like he wants to say so much and just get everything off his chest finally but he’s still hesitant.

Asking for help is so new for him, Tyler can tell.

Tyler takes both of Josh’s hands in his own. Josh maintains eye contact.

The lovers look at each other, one uncertain, the other supportive.

The spirit gives him a nod and the floodgates of previously withheld pain are open.

“We don’t grow our own weed,” Josh begins. “Not the weed we sell anyway. We move too much product to keep up with growing it. We’d need a garden as big as a fucking warehouse and way better gardening skills, which is lost cause on dummies like us.”

Tyler squeezes his hands. He knows it was meant to be a joke but there’s a growing suspicion Tyler has that Josh considers himself extremely stupid.

It breaks Tyler’s heart.

“We get shipments from a supplier, a higher up, like, someone who has the connections to farms and stuff.” Josh sighs. “Technically we have a boss.”

“A boss?” Tyler says. “You work for people?”

Josh averts his gaze. “Technically.”

The spirit guesses he gets the hesitance to say such a thing.

They’re all very rebellious, stick it to the man types that would hate to say they had a boss, but if they’re not selling their own product, what other choice do they have?

“You give him money?” Tyler says. Josh looks back at him.

“Hm?”

“You give him money?” he repeats. “The guy that gives you the weed?”

“We pay a couple hundred for each delivery, then cut him sixty-percent after we’ve moved all of it.”

Blurry yawns. They give her a glance.

“We were supposed to be getting a shipment at our usual location but it never showed up. Called the guy, asked him where he was. Apparently, it was already picked up.”

Tyler furrows his brow. “By one of you?”

“By someone saying they worked for us,” Josh says with the quick glimmer of fire burning in his eyes at the memory. “No name, no face, nothing. Some guy wearing a mask took one of the biggest shipments we were ever supposed to get and the guy we buy from doesn’t believe our story. He thinks we’re trying to dupe him out of his shipment.”

The anger in Josh’s eyes quickly simmers, only to be replaced with a look of terrible anxiety. Josh squeezes Tyler’s hands, the tiniest broken whimper escaping him in growing panic.

“Breathe,” Tyler whispers almost inaudibly, not wanting to interrupt his story but knowing he has to calm down.

“We have to pay him back or find the shipment,” Josh says shakily.

“You have money, though,” Tyler states dumbly, as if reminding him. “Jewelry. Stacks of hundreds you hide in the walls. You have the money to pay him back.”

Josh’s eyebrows rise. “That’s not enough, Tyler. We’d have to sell the house and the truck too.”

“It’s that much?”

Josh searches Tyler’s eyes, obviously hesitating on the truth. The spirit remains strong in his eye contact, kindly but firmly reminding him that they don’t hide anything from the other.

“How much do you owe?” Tyler says.

“A lot,” Josh murmurs. “A lot, a lot.”

Tyler gives a shaky sigh. “Okay. By when does he need it?”

“Next Sunday.”

Tyler’s mind is racing. It's as if he's been presented with a puzzle or math problem of how to come up with ‘a lot’ of money by next Sunday. He's trying to figure out their options when suddenly he comes upon a realization.

“You're not just selling weed,” Tyler murmurs because what he imagines to be a large shipment of weed couldn't possibly cost them a new car and an entire house cluttered with cash.

Josh stares at him, a subtly shine in his eyes. “Only harder stuff recently.”

Tyler’s heart hammers in his chest. The human body is so strange because he knows his blood is warm but somehow it feels ice cold in his veins.

“What specifically?” he asks.

“Xanax. Cocaine.”

Josh’s gaze begs Tyler to ask once more.

“What else?”

Josh’s chin trembles.

“We were only moving a little bit,” Josh murmurs. “A hit or two. Heroin.”

“H-Have you taken any of these drugs?” Tyler says, squeezing Josh’s hands and tugging them closer at his own growing panic.

“No,” Josh says seriously.

“Do you promise?”

“I promise you, Tyler,” Josh says. “I’d tell you if I had relapsed.”

Tyler tries to regain control of his breathing. He's so proud that Josh is still sober from pills and opiates but that conversation will have to come later.

Right now, all he can think about is the astronomical mess Josh and his friends have gotten themselves in.

“Josh, this is bigger than what you all can handle, you do know that right?”

Josh rips his hands from Tyler's so he can bury his face in his hands.

“This is serious, Josh. This is too much for all of you.” Tyler is letting it flow, trying to get sort through his rambling thoughts by speaking them aloud. “It's dangerous, for you and the people you're selling to. Josh do you understand how serious this is? You-”

“I know!”

Tyler blinks at the man across from him who is squeezing his eyes shut and looking down.

“Please don't yell at me,” Josh says with a shaky voice. “I know, I know, I know.”

Josh is still murmuring to himself as he keeps his head down and his eyes shut. Tyler’s gaze shifts from Josh to the cat who is sitting beside the both of them.

Blurry is looking at one of her two owners curiously, unsure of what to make of this image. The feline gives a soft chirp and shifts her paw closer to the near panicking man, but it goes unseen by Josh.

There’s a loud laugh outside in the kitchen. Josh jumps. His eyes squeeze shut. His palms find a place over his ears involuntarily.

“Hey, hey, breathe, Josh,” Tyler whispers, hands trying to gently hold Josh’s again but he keeps moving.

Josh doesn't know where to put his hands. They're trembling in the air, flying to his hair, scratching his leg and then repeating the cycle again.

When he finally catches his hands, Tyler gently places them on Blurry’s black coat. The spirit shushes Josh quietly as he helps guide his hand gently down the cat’s back.

“I- I- I swear I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you, I wasn’t trying to, to hurt you or lie to you,” Josh rambles. “I didn’t want you to think I was some fucking idiot, I didn’t want you to worry about the stupid shit we do because you’ve worried so much already and I know how much it hurts you to worry, I’m sorry, Tyler, I’m sorry-”

Tyler strokes his cheek and shushes him. “No talking. Focus on breathing. Focus on Blurry.”

Blurry purrs under her owner’s shaking hand. He’s a little rough and clumsy at first as his breath is chopped up but the cat doesn’t seem to mind in the slightest.

Tyler is there to help him count his breaths in and breaths out, help guide his hand down the cat whenever he begins to get worked up again. The longer Josh pets the animal, the easier his breath begins to come.

Tyler knows he's finally calmed down when he begins to scratch behind Blurry’s ears on each stroke down.

“Thank you, Tyler,” Josh murmurs, still a little embarrassed. “Thank you, Blurry.”

Blurry chirps. The couple smiles.

When they look back at each other, the hurt is still there, albeit a bit lessened.

Josh leans over and buries his face in Tyler’s neck.

“I’m sorry for keeping things from you,” Josh whispers. “You don’t deserve to be bogged down with all my shit. I thought it would hurt you.”

“You suffering in silence hurts me,” Tyler says. “You refusing to talk to me about your emotions hurts me because I hate seeing you so upset and exhausted. I want you to ask for help when you need it; talking is better than nothing.”

Josh nods against his throat, a small whimper escaping him as he holds his boyfriend’s shirt tightly once again. “I don't know what I'm gonna do, Ty.”

“Does Michael know about this?”

“No,” Josh murmurs.

Tyler strokes his boyfriend’s hair. He scratches at his scalp. He reminds Josh to breathe when he feels the breaths against his neck getting tense.

“We’ll figure it out, Josh,” Tyler says. “We’re capable.”

This situation is simply a puzzle, a riddle, that they have been presented with.

With the entire house and the new strength and truth the couple share, there is no doubt in Tyler’s mind that they're more than capable of deciphering it.

For now, though, the most important thing for them to do is breathe. 


End file.
